Marketers do not use social media in the same way you do. Not personally and not professionally.
Personally, a good number of marketers lurk on social media purely for the entertainment they find there. Some of them even have multiple accounts, allowing them to try out different versions of themselves, or to niche down on a focused interest. Some of them choose not to participate in social media on a personal level at all, or they do so only on select platforms.
For their professional brand marketers typically select a platform (or two), targeted topics, tone of voice, and style of post. They may even adhere to a specific cadence of posting, optimized for the platform.
Professionally, for businesses they represent, marketers will select a platform that is appropriate for their target audience, know the platform rules, A/B test messaging and imagery, develop brand standards – including visual use (imagery, fonts, colors) and language tone – and monitor the analytics as well as iterate, innovate, and inform with the company messaging.
Such activity is very different from the casual social media platform use of non-marketers trying to “sell” their business or services.
Marketing professionals do not “spray and pray” the same message across multiple platforms. Why not? First, and easiest to visualize, because the various platforms have disparate image-sizing requirements, which may alienate followers by showcasing content that was not created for them.
Second is that different times of day and different days may yield better results on different platforms. Third is that any mentions or acknowledgements (“tags”) will vary by platform, and doing that in a way that is incompatible with the platform where your audience is experiencing the post looks amateurish.
When you are posting for your company or for yourself in a professional capacity, you can take advantage of what marketers know to improve your posts. What can you do to use social media like a marketer?
Recognize employees on platforms they use. Examples are employee milestones or birthdays being marked on Facebook or an internal social resource. Recognize professional accomplishments with proper tagging on a professional platform. Know how to use the speed of the algorithm in your favor by planning or scheduling posts in advance. Know which platforms favor immediacy.
Know how to use language to your advantage – such as, when posting the day of an event to a long-lead platform, structure your post to offer after-event contact options. Understand what platforms favor whimsical hashtags and which use functional hashtags. Learn whether your preferred platform(s) penalize you for edits in the first hour or are more forgiving of mistakes. Know the most advantageous range of hashtags for your brand on the platform you choose. Strategically use outbound links to additional platforms you “own” (website, event sign ups, other social platforms like YouTube.)
But more important than leaning into the usage and algorithms of your chosen platform(s) is testing and analyzing the effects of your activity. This is what sets marketers apart – experimentation followed by consistency.
If your long-form content isn’t resonating, change the posting day/time or structure it as a series of posts or add a visual element to the content. Do your posts do better if you send them a week before the event? Do posts with pictures of staff faces do better than text posts? Test. Track what you change. Analyze the results.
Create a brand guide – for yourself or your business. Include anything important: brand colors, topic focus, brand glossary, font size. All the visual and tonal elements that create a consistent presence.
Using social media can allow you to find your voice and find your audience. Using social media like marketers do will help you build a brand.
Alexandria Trusov is the Global Marketing Director at Alpha Resources and a B2B marketing consultant to manufacturers and other B2B companies. Contact her at [email protected] or visit www.truinsightsconsulting.com.